Part 19 (1/2)
”I accept your obliging invitation conditionally If I aenius than yourself, or one by whose works I have been more completely interested, I will repudiate you, and dine with the lory in the matter of literary criticism is that, as Ruskin told us, he was the first man in the literary circles of London to assert the value of _Modern Painters_ ”He said it was a work of transcendent talent, presented the e, and would work a complete revolution in the world of taste”[169]
With the physical sciences Sydney Smith see theh life he studied diligently and practised courageously But he recoht little girls”; and his friendshi+p with the aave hi of scientific terms In a discussion on the _Inferno_ he invented a new torment especially for that excellent lady's benefit--
”You should be doomed to listen, for a thousand years, to conversations between Caroline and E explanations in cheuish an acid from an alkali”
When we turn, froeneral view of life, Sydney Sht, to have been a Utilitarian: and yet he declared hiorous terms an opponent of the Utilitarian School--
”That school treat s or affections never enter into their calculations If everything is to be sacrificed to utility, why do you bury your grandmother? why don't you cut her into small pieces at once, and make portable soup of her?”
In a sie Grote that he would have been an important politician if the world had been a chess-board Any system, social, political, or philosophical, which did not directly concern itself with the wants and feelings and impulses of human flesh and blood, appealed to hiate, to show that the principle of general utility has no foundation; that it is often opposed to the interests of the individual! If this be true, there is an end of all reasoning and all enerally useful? he should not be reasoned with, but called rogue, rascal, etc, and the mob should be excited to break his s”
He liked what he called ”useful truth” He couldonwhich can have a reference to the real world, inhabited by real overned by his eager and generous huht all speculation, which did not bear directly on the welfare and happiness of huenuity; and yet, at the saht that all practical systems, which left out of account the emotional and sentiher side of his nature showed itself in his lively affections, his intense love of ho tenacity of friendshi+p, and his overflowing sy
”The haunts of Happiness,” he wrote, ”are varied, and rather unaccountable; but I havelittle children, and by home firesides, and in country houses, than anywhere else,--at least, I think so”
When his rave with his heart scarred like a soldier's body,” and, when he lost his infant boy, he said--”Children are horribly insecure; the life of a parent is the life of a gambler”
His ue of ”Modern Changes” which he co it with the characteristic couplet:--
”The good of ancient times let others state, I think it lucky I was born so late”[171]
It concludes with the words, ”Even in the best society one third of the gentlemen at least were always drunk”
This reminds us that, in the matter of temperance, Sydney Smith was far in advance of his tie doctor of the Stoic fur, Praising the lean and sallow Abstinence,”
is plain enough from his correspondence ”The wretchedness of human life,”
he wrote in 1817, ”is only to be encountered upon the basis of meat and wine”; but he had a curiously keen sense of the evils induced by ”the sweet poyson”[172] As early as 1814 he urged Lord Holland to ”leave off wine entirely,” for, though never guilty of excess, Holland showed a ”respectable and dangerous plenitude” After a visit to London in the same year, Sydney wrote:--
”I liked London better than ever I liked it before, and si Without this, London is stupefaction and inflahtlessness and unconscious i wine, and one does the sa of it All people above the condition of labourers are ruined by excess of stientleman who ate and drank as little as was reasonable”
In 1828 he wrote to Lady Holland (of Holland House):--
”I not only was never better, but never half so well: indeed I find I have been very ill all oods arising fro fro never knohat sweet sleep was, I sleep like a baby or a plough-boy If I wake, no needless terrors, no black visions of life, but pleasing hopes and pleasing recollections: Holland House, past and to coers, but of Easter dues and tithes Secondly, I can take longer walks, andis improved, and I comprehend Political Econoant spirits that I must look out for some one ill bore and depress me”
In 1834 he wrote:--
”I a all fer but London water, with a million insects in every drop He who drinks a tumbler of London water has literally in his stos than there are lobe”
In spite of this disquieting analysis he persevered, and wrote two years later:--